Third day of Mendoza trial focuses on video interview

Submitted photo
Then a teenager, Senovio Mendoza poses in his gown after graduation ceremonies at a youth rehabilitation center where he was held.

CARLSBAD >> In a profanity-laced interview seen in court via video tape, defendant Senovio Mendoza rambled from one story to the next, but always returned to the Jan. 2, 2012, shooting of Artesia resident Tim Wallace, for which he is charged with first-degree murder.

Deputy District Attorney Davis Ruark called Carlsbad Police Det. Scott Naylor to the witness stand to lay the groundwork for the two interview tapes about to be shown.

The video opened with Mendoza handcuffed, sniffling and sighing as he sat alone in a small room. He was soon uncuffed, and the interview began.

One officer, then another, would enter and talk with Mendoza, sometimes not asking questions, just letting him tell them all about the previous day.

That's the day he and two other men, Matthew Sloan and Donald Ybarra, went to Artesia in search of drugs.

They went to the Wallace home at Mendoza's behest because he had purchased drugs there before. But something went wrong, and Sloan grabbed a rifle he had brought with him, raised it and shot Wallace in the head.

The three men fled in Sloan's pickup. He dropped Mendoza and Ybarra at the Ybarra home, where Mendoza spent the night.

After talking to a bail bondsman, Mendoza called police and agreed to tell them his story.

As seen on the video tape, Mendoza fidgeted and moved constantly, and did not speak for long before returning to the account of the shooting. He said it was in his head.

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"I wanted to pick up some drugs. ... That's all I wanted to do," he said.

He was in the bedroom with Wallace talking about the transaction when Sloan appeared in the doorway.

"He wigged the f... out and shot the dude," Mendoza said.

He said Wallace didn't reach for a gun nor any other item.

"The dude (Wallace) was a good dude,"

Mendoza said Sloan had no reason to do what he did.

With Naylor still on the witness stand, defense attorney Gary Mitchell stated, "Prior to talking to Mr. Mendoza, neither he, nor Mr. Sloan nor Mr. Ybarra was a suspect in this murder."

Naylor agreed that was true.

The prosecution rested its case in the early afternoon.

District Judge Jane Shuler Gray denied a pro forma motion from Mitchell for a directed verdict of not guilty.